


Building Bridges

by beadedslipper



Series: The Cully Wully Ficlet Saga [6]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-09 02:25:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3232781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beadedslipper/pseuds/beadedslipper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen doesn't like nobles very much.  They are spoiled, lazy, and weak.  He expects the Herald of Andraste, a Trevelyan, to be the same way.  She proves him wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Building Bridges

Cullen doesn’t like the nobility. Or maybe it’s better to say he doesn’t respect them. If his experience with Orlesians is anything to go by, they are pampered and lazy at best, duplicitous as a snake at worst. He is certain the Herald of Andraste will be no different. She is a Trevelyan after all. They may be a minor noble house, but they are still a noble house.

He will join in the cause, but not because he believes in the Herald. He believes that the hole in the sky needs to be closed, he wants to protect people, even if he’s not a Templar anymore, and Cassandra asked him for help. That’s why he shows up at Haven.

He fully expects the so-called Herald of Andraste to milk every bit of leeway and privilege her near-blasphemous title affords her. He believes in the Maker. He never could have been a Templar otherwise. But the days of heaven-sent prophets and saviors are long past.

He is a little surprised the first time he sees her. Cassandra shoved her into the war room, saying she should know what was going on if she’s meant to stop it all. She certainly doesn’t _look_ like the milksoppy, silk-handed little girl he expected. Not with her battered armor and the healing slash on her cheek. The only place she looks young is her eyes. They look nervous and confused. They chart the room, clearly not sure where she fits in, either here in this room or in the Inquisition as a whole.

They take in everyone with a surprising intelligence, perusing first Josephine, then Leliana, and finally him. When she finally does meet his eyes Cullen is surprised at the intense purple hue. How unusual and striking.

Once the meeting starts she doesn’t say much but when she does speak her words are surprisingly insightful and the others quickly learn to listen.

He still doesn’t put much stock in her despite the unexpectedly positive first impression. It’s entirely likely that she’s just trying to get them to like her. When things get tough and the demons knock on the door then, he is sure, she will show her true colors.

They argue, often. Particularly when she advocates for allying with the rebel mages over the Templars. He is maybe a little more dismissive of her ideas than he should be because he expects them to be bad ones. She gets this incredibly indignant look on her face when he undercuts her counsel, wrinkling her nose and fisting her hands like she wants to punch him in the face.

But as he watches her over weeks and months her true colors never seem to come out and he is forced to consider that perhaps the person he sees is the person she actually is.

She tirelessly ventures out into dangerous, enemy-infested territory to gain resources and allies for the Inquisition. Every time she returns she has a new wound or scar that wasn’t there before but she never complains. In fact, there are times he wished she complained more. She is frustratingly lax when it comes to her own physical wellbeing, often refusing to go to the healer unless Varric literally drags her there. He would do it himself, but Varric seems to have it covered.

When she’s in Haven she gives as much of her time and energy to the cause as he does, reading endless missives, requests for aid, and even threats to her life. She brings her insight and opinions to the war room and then works even longer, helping them decide the best allocation of resources throughout Ferelden and Val Royeux.

She takes up hammer and saw to help build housing for their growing numbers and even takes a turn reinforcing the wooden perimeter that protects Haven from invaders. The first time he gets a close-up glimpse of her hands he sees they are covered in thin, white scars and calluses. They are workers hands. Fighter’s hands. Hands that look surprisingly similar to his.

He is even forced to admit she is an accomplished fighter. He admires her form with sword and shield, different from Templar formations, but deadly effective if her exhausted sparring partners are any evidence. He has yet to see her in action with anything more dangerous than a wooden practice sword, but part of him looks forward to the day he has the chance.

When his chance finally comes he very much wishes it hadn’t. Haven is burning and she is telling him to go while she stays behind to delay the army that has come to crush them into the dirt. He has no choice but to obey. The safety of the people that follow them is more important than one life, even hers.

He fully expects her to die for her self-sacrifice. He fully expects to regret jumping to prejudiced conclusions and not getting to know her better for the rest of his life. When he spots her stumbling through the snow, exhausted and hypothermic but somehow alive, he is surprised by the force of relief that rushes through him. He is surprised by the desire to protect her when he cradles her unconscious form in his arms and carries her back to their camp.

Skyhold is just a new lesson in how wrong he was about her. He watches her face when Cassandra presents her with the sword of the Inquisitor, right there in front of Josephine and Leliana and the Maker and everyone else. She looks decidedly disconcerted and a little bit embarrassed. She doesn’t believe she deserves the title or accolades, which just convinces him that she is exactly the right person for the job. He’s not sure even he could resist the ego rush with such a promotion, but it just makes her even more unsure. She rallies fast enough, he guesses because she simply has no other choice. She can either lead them or let them all die and she is far too protective to let them die.

When she finds him in the courtyard a few days after their arrival and tells him that she’s glad he survived, he gets the sense that it is the beginning of the end, the first nail in the coffin that will lay to rest all of his misguided assumptions about her.

The blush that warms his cheeks is only supporting evidence.

She starts to seek him out first out of anybody when she returns from a foray to Crestwood or the Fallow Marches. He starts to look forward to her returns, to the image of her leaning in the doorway of his tower, the same way he looks forward to his mother’s special Saturnalia cakes. Obsessively and to the point of distraction.

Then she kisses him and he really is lost. All of his walls come down and all of his preconceptions are scattered to the wind. All he knows is that the feel of her in his arms is the rightest thing in the world and that he would follow her into fire if she asked it of him.

Through every battle and near-death experience, every late night and hard decision that has her near tears, he is there. Nothing changes except for how much he loves her. That only grows.

When she finally puts down Corypheus, in her biggest coup against Death so far, he can’t contain the sheer relief that fills him up. It overcomes him and he embraces her, right there on the stairs to Skyhold keep.

After they slip away, late into the revelry, he holds her in his arms on the balcony of her chambers.

It is the dawn of a new day.

She is not what he expected but everything he needs and he thanks the Maker that she seems to need him too.


End file.
